IN HER ART PRACTISE, BROWN MAKES RESPONSIVE PHOTOGRAPHIC WORK BASED ON INTERACTIONS WITH THE UNFAMILIAR; OBSERVING THE WORLD AS A STAGE, EXPLORING ALONE, OFTEN AT NIGHT & OCCASIONALLY POPULATING THE IMAGES WITH WILLING STRANGERS. THROUGH THESE PROCESSES, BROWN ENDEAVOURS TO QUESTION THE CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER, FEAR, CLASS AND ESCAPISM WITHIN WESTERN SOCIETY.

SIMULATIONS. 2014 - 2018

“Rachel Louise Brown’s approach to photography is original and astonishing. An artist-in-residence at the Palm Beach Photographic Centre, England-born Brown decided to focus on the oft-advertised image of Florida as the land of escapism, entertainment and thrills, a symbol of the American Dream. Exploring local attractions alone and after hours, including the Palm Beach Zoo, Mar-a-Lago, Fright Nights at the South Florida Fairground and The Breakers, and juxtaposing portraits of young ballerinas, gymnasts and marching bands who are trained to entertain, she has produced a personal and intentionally objective view of these familiar landmarks in her solo exhibition, SIMULATIONS”

The Cultural Council of Palm Beach County

The Mermaid. Weeki Wachee Springs, 2017

Mar-a-Lago I. Palm Beach, 2015

Mar-a-Lago II. Palm Beach, 2015

Self Portrait, Breakers Hotel. Palm Beach, 2017

Carnival of Creeps, Fright Nights. West Palm Beach, 2017

The Lobster Girl, Fright Nights. West Palm Beach, 2017

Kissing Booth, Fright Nights. West Palm Beach, 2017

Marty, the Albino Alligator, Palm Beach Zoo. West Palm Beach, 2015

The Carousel, Palm Beach Zoo. West Palm Beach, 2015

Tom. Palm Beach, 2015

Bait Shop. West Palm Beach, 2015

The Street. West Palm Beach, 2015

Wash Rite. West Palm Beach, 2017

Ice Cream Stand. Stuart, 2015

Mac Fabrics. West Palm Beach, 2014

The Beauty Salon. Jupiter, 2015

The Crossing. West Palm Beach, 2014

Gloria. West Palm Beach, 2014

The Holy Land. Orlando, 2015

The Stage. Orlando, 2015

Marching Band I. West Palm Beach, 2017

Marching Band II. West Palm Beach, 2017

Rehearsal I, Ballet East. West Palm Beach, 2017

Rehearsal II, Ballet East. West Palm Beach, 2017

Practise I, Palm Beach Gymnastics. West Palm Beach, 2017

Practise II, Palm Beach Gymnastics. West Palm Beach, 2017

The Ballad of Fire Mountain. Sicily, 2014

A selection of images from the solo exhibition and publication. All photographs were made whilst living on Mount Etna, Sicily; Europe's most active volcano - during an artist's residency awarded by the town of Zafferana Etnea.

On the Moon. 2014

Sulla Luna. 2014

Waiting for a Smile. 2014

In Attesa di un Sorriso. 2014

They Rest Where They Fall. 2014

Rimangono Dove Cadono. 2014

Looking Out to the Land Below. 2014

Affacciandosi sul Paesaggio Sottostante. 2014

Valley del Bove, Mount Etna. 2014

Valle del Bove, Vulcano dell'Etna. 2014

A Chorus of Clouds, Valley del Bove. 2014

Il Coro delle Nuvole, Valle del Bove. 2014

Lightning Cloud, Observed from Rifugio Citelli. 2014

Nuvola Lampeggiante Osservata dal Rifugio Citelli. 2014

Rifugio Citelli, After the Storm. 2014

Rifugio Citelli, Dopo la Tempesta. 2014

The Street, Zafferana Etnea. 2014

La Strada, Zafferana Etnea. 2014

Cactus. 2014

Cactus. 2014

Chorus of Roses. 2014

Il Coro delle Rose. 2014

River of Lava. 2014

Un Fiume di Lava. 2014

The Villa. 2014

La Villa. 2014

Shadows Falling. 2014

Ombre in Caduta. 2014

Dance of the Madonna. 2014

La Danze della Madonna. 2014

The House of Ruins. 2014

La Casa in Rovina. 2014

The House of Ruins. 2014

La Casa in Rovina. 2014

Antonia Baricca, Sculpting the Souls of Etna. 2014

Antonio Barrica Scolpendo le Anime dell'Etna. 2014

Gallop. 2014

Al Galoppo. 2014

Lava Waves. 2014

Onde di Lava. 2014

Epicentre. 2014

Epicentro. 2014

Monitoring and Surveillance. 2014

Monitoraggio e Sorveglianza. 2014

Mother Etna, 2014

Madre Etna. 2014

Apartment 5, Clearlake Hotel. 2014

"In the last gasping breath of the Clearlake Hotel in London, a group of artists celebrate, commemorate and consecrate the life and death of such an unusually rich visual landscape. ‘The Last Breath’ is a one night exhibition of art, design and performance within the walls of this vastly historical hotel".

Brown spent a night alone in a room at the Clearlake hotel, creating imagery whilst drug addicts, prostitutes and those escaping reality roamed around the hallways.

THE EXHIBITION EVENT TOOK PLACE AT THE CLEARLAKE HOTEL ON 4th DECEMBER 2014

Apartment 5, Clearlake Hotel. Untitled III, 2014

Apartment 5, Clearlake Hotel. Untitled II, 2014

Apartment 5, Clearlake Hotel. Untitled I, 2014

The main focus of the exhibition lies in the building itself working as an integral part of the artworks exhibited. Clearlake is a tired, run down hotel with dated and shabby interiors. When walking through this labyrinth environment what strikes us as artists is how the building feels like a heaving, fragile, unstable and decaying body, possibly taking its last breath. The airless apartments have peeling wallpaper, exhausted and greasy kitchens, leaking taps and humming bathrooms.

The auratic feel is one of the building breaking down, much like a human body and mind can as it ages over its lifespan. In ‘The Last Breath’ sixteen artists explore the relationship between the building and the interior of a human body by dissecting it, looking inward and mirroring and reflecting the architecture of the hotel.

The hotel will be made anthropomorphic, conceptually assigning each apartment with a bodily function or part, for example, the nervous system, the lungs, bodily fluids, the cerebral cortex, the bowels, the sexual organs, the heart etc. Visitors will be able to interact with the space and experience it; lie on the beds, sit on the sofas, watch videos on the television etc. Questions will inevitably be raised about who slept in that bed or sat in that chair in such transient spaces as these apartments. The hotel becomes open to the senses and is felt as a unique experience to the viewer that can be smelt, heard, seen and even tasted. As Bernard Tschumi writes, “buildings only truly come alive on the point of collapse”.

The Self as The Other. 2012 - 2013

Extract from 'The Self as Every Woman' a conversation between Rachel Louise Brown and Megan Powell, printed in The Malevolent Eye publication...

MP: Malevolent tropes are often used in cinema to symbolise 'the other', e.g. the supernatural and the suspense of the unknown. How does this relate to your self portraits?

RLB: The type of malevolence you describe became prevalent when I turned the camera on myself. My work had come to a point where I had repeated the process so many times that the unfamiliar had become familiar. I took the camera to a house in Averyon, France. Strangely I kept waking up in the early hours of the morning, paralysed, with the feeling that there was a haunted presence in the room. My imagination regressed back to childhood. Was the room haunted? Was it my imagination? When alone, I made self portraits in the room, becoming that which I feared. 'The Ghost' was made and the 'Self as the Other' series began. I often wonder whether cinema (and other parts of culture such as literature) affect how we experience emotion or whether emotional responses are innate. I am definitely aware of how the unknown is visualised in cinema, which must affect my imagination and visual response to a certain degree.

Three Men Stretching. 2012

The Headless Figure. 2013

Running Through the Forest. 2013

The Ghost. 2012

The Chapel at Dawn. 2013

Reflection. 2013

The Smoking Room. 2013

Figure in the Curtains. 2013

A Window on Shibuya. 2013

The Malevolent Eye. 2009 - 2013

A selection of works from the book and exhibition. The images were created whilst trespassing, wandering at night alone and with strangers found via casting calls.

Extract from The Malevolent Eye Introduction, by Christian Caujolle

CC: From the outset, photographers have developed techniques, devices and playful stratagems that enable them to blend reality with fiction. They have encouraged their audience to believe in what they see, and to forget that it is an image; moreover, they give the impression that the image - however improbable it may be - is much more credible that reality. By playing in this complex and subtle way, not being truthful while never really lying, Brown draws us into a world that is strictly her own. It is offered to us not as fiction but as reality, like a dream given form - strange and marvellous, while remaining enigmatic.

T & I (VIDEO). 2011

T & I. 2011

The Boarding School. 2010 - 2011

Photographs taken in and around a Japanese boarding school in Slough, England

The Male Pin Up Casting, NYC. 2011

The participants were found via a casting call placed on Craiglist.com. The advert asked for men who considered themselves pinups to come along to a Manhattan studio and pose for one roll of film. No money was offered in exchange for posing nor any instruction on how to dress or pose.

The Swimming Pool Casting. 2010

Work made during the residency Rencontres de la jeune photographie international, Niort 2010. The participants are local teenage girls who agreed to pose for photographs at the town's swimming pool.

We are Objects. Do Not Touch, 2010

Portraits of the artist's teenage sister and cousins wearing her Nana's nightdress - a dress she would try on as a young girl to see what it might be like to have an adult female body.

Reproduction. 2010

Self portraits in the darkroom made with a digital camera.

Pick Me Please. Connecticut, 2009

At the Miss New Haven beauty pageant, the contestants are asked to bring an outfit they may wear for a business interview. They are then interviewed by a middle aged man in a fake job interview. They are judged on the interview and the points count towards their ranking at the pageant.

I Want to be Just Like You. 2008

Balti: Unmeasured Measurements. 2015

Lord Robert Napier. 2010

Commissioned by Jasleen Kaur. More information on the project can be found here

A turban tied by the father of artist Jasleen Kaur on the head of the current Lord Robert Napier, whose great granddad (Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala) was an army officer in the 1st and 2nd Anglo-Sikh Wars in Punjab